How To Add Value To Your Trade Show Program

Do you wish you could show value for your trade program but aren’t sure how to do it? So often the first line of ROI measurement is focused on the quantity of lead scans in the exhibit. Cindy McCormick, CTSM and Associate Director Convention Marketing at Novo Nordisk shares in a recent interview at HCEAConnect 10 key ways you can increase the value of your trade show results and motivate your sales reps.

1. Look beyond the scan. Lead capture isn’t the only way to measure trade show results. Beacon technology is one way to track traffic and allow the attendee to approach the reps on the show floor.

2. Use the attendee demographics to measure visibility. If you have a banner ad, or other sponsorship and you know the total number of attendees you are able to calculate how many people saw your message while at the conference. And depending on the placement, most likely attendees are seeing the message more than once.

3. Use the unopposed and opposed hours to measure traffic. If you establish the dwell time an attendee has with a sales rep you can calculate how many people sales reps talk to during unopposed show floor hours and then change the calculation to be less when there are fewer attendees during opposed (during sessions at the conference) show floor hours.

4. Leverage exposure in the poster areas. A lot of attendees go to the poster area at healthcare conventions and this is a metric that is valuable if you have a poster, visibility of your scientific information counts towards overall impressions at a trade show.

5. Find Sponsorships that offer visibility. Some conferences have hotel key cards as a sponsorship and other items that get repeated visibility. This metric should be included in the overall impressions and impact on attendees at a conference.

6. Consider the location of the conference when determining overall traffic to the exhibit. If the convention is in a city that has outside attractions, the traffic in the hall may decrease during unopposed hours and that plays a factor in the measurement of people in the booth.

7. Focus on quality over quantity. Talking to the most people isn’t going to give results as effectively as talking to the right customers. Conferences aren’t increasing the number of attendees and so the notion of getting more and more leads shouldn’t be the end goal.

8. Create a pop-up territory for the conference. Establish sales goals for the “pop-up” territory and communicate them to the sales reps and their managers.

9. Incentivize your sales team to have quality conversations. Choose a reward that is visible and makes the sales reps energized to have quality conversations over quantity. This strategy also helps the sales reps feel focused on the show floor to engage with attendees instead of with colleagues.

10. Host post-show daily debrief sessions. Solicit feedback during the show from the sales reps and give them the opportunity to share best practices on how they are engaging in conversations with target attendees. Acknowledge the daily leader in the pop-up territory and copy their manager about their on-site performance.

Cindy shares invaluable insights on how you can increase engagement, value, visibility and ultimately improve results. Check out the full interview here including how she re-invented her personal brand after being at a company for 22 years.

Balance Strategy: Cindy recommends sleep being a primary focus when traveling. She also shares a resource for energy management and living a performance lifestyle in order to really accelerate your personal stamina for traveling.

General Resource: Mark Goldberg has an e-book to challenge stakeholders about why they want to go to shows.